Blink-182's Travis Barker Is Making Huge Life Changes for His Kids

Daughter Alabama is one of the reasons Travis Barker wants to change his life.

As parents, we make a lot of changes in our lives to make our children healthy, happy, safe, independent, well-educated and a solid citizen of the world. Sometimes the sacrifices are minor, like giving up a good night’s sleep to accommodate a newborn’s feeding needs. Sometimes they’re more substantial, like moving to a neighborhood with better schools.

Despite his tough appearance, Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker is also a devoted dad, and in the new issue of The Red Bulletin, he discusses the things he’s done and plans to do to make things better for his 8-year-old son, Landon, and his 6-year-old daughter, Alabama.

The first thing he’s doing is taking care of his health and quitting a habit he picked up several years ago. “I used to love smoking weed,” he says. “…I always thought I’d be able to do that for the rest of my life, but when your health is on the line, you don’t **** around. I love being a dad and I love playing music – I’m not trying to give up any of that.”

Travis is also watching his diet following a recent endoscopy that showed he had a pre-cancerous condition in his esophagus caused by severe acid reflux and smoking. “Right then and there, I changed my whole life around. I had to stop eating and drinking certain things,” he says. “And I had this lump in my throat around the same time. My tonsils were three to four times they should have been. So eight days ago, they yanked my tonsils and adenoids out.”

But perhaps the most impressive – and courageous – change the rock drummer is poised to make involves moving on past a terribly traumatic experience.In September of 2008, Travis and fellow musician DJ AM were critically injured when their private plane crashed in South Carolina following a concert. Four other passengers were killed, including Travis’s assistant and security guard. Travis hasn’t been on a plane since then, even though he admits his fear could affect his band’s upcoming European concert tour.

But he’s determined to face his demons before long. “I’m contemplating getting knocked out and getting on a plane to Australia,” he says. “I want to overcome that eventually.” Why Australia? Because their home airline, Qantas, has never been in a crash. “It’s something I want to overcome for me – and my kids are scared to death to fly. I want them to witness me overcome it.”

Bravo to Travis for making all these positive changes!

The Red Bulletin is available via tablet app through the Apple iTunes store, Google Play and via Redbulletin.com, as well as in select stores and to certain newspaper subscribers.

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